"Tommie Agee, Oh Sure!... I remember him well," says our manager@baseballhistorian.com. "

Agee was a type of player where statistics were meaningless. Although his stats didn't quite compare with other stars of this era, Agee was a real winner. He was pleasant, intelligent, hardworking, and played winning baseball." Tommie Agee, the American League's 1966 Rookie of the Year with the White Sox, is best remembered for his heroics as a New York Met in the 1969 World Series.

An outstanding center-fielder and an all-around baseball player, Agee made two of the greatest catches in Series history to help the Mets in their upset of the Baltimore Orioles. Agee spent eight full seasons and parts of four others in the major leagues with the Sox, Mets, Cleveland Indians, Houston Astros and St. Louis Cardinals, retired in 1973 with a .255 career average, 130 home runs, and 433 runs batted in. He is best remembered by fans for his performance in Game 3 of the '69 World Series. He started things by lining a homer off Jim Palmer to open the bottom of the first inning. He then dashed into left-center in the fourth to steal a hit from Elrod Hendricks with runners on the corners and two outs to preserve a 3-0 lead. In the seventh, he made a sliding catch in right-center to rob Paul Blair with two outs and the bases loaded. "The homer meant only one run," Agee said later. "The catches saved many more than that." The Shea Stadium crowd of 56,335 gave Agee a standing ovation when he led off the bottom of the seventh. "Words can't describe how that made me feel," he said. "I felt like I wanted to hit two home runs in that one time at bat." The catches immediately brought comparison to past phenomenal World Series grabs by Al Gionfriddo off of Joe DiMaggio (1947), Willie Mays off Vic Wertz (1954) and Sandy Amoros off Yogi Berra (1955). The Mets went on to a 5-0 victory and eventually defeated heavily favored Baltimore four games to one to become the first expansion team to win a World Series.

n 1966, his first full season in the majors, Agee smashed a game tying home run on Opening Day for the White Sox at old Comiskey Park off Dean Chance of the California Angels, and followed that up a week later by crashing another homer as the White Sox bested the Angels in the first game ever played at Anaheim Stadium. For the season Agee hit .273, including 22 HR, and stole 44 bases.  He was honored by the Sports Writers' Association as the Rookie of the Year. Agee's finest seasons besides 1966 were 1969 - when he batted .271 for the Mets with 26 homers and 76 RBIs - and 1970, when he hit .286 with 24 homers, 107 runs scored and 31 steals.